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Phone Towers And Cancer
Do Phone
Towers Cause Cancer?
Akash Peshin
Well, the answer isn’t an outright no. One can find some solace in
the fact that the evidence for the case hasn’t been conclusive.
Right now, at this very moment, you are drowning in an ocean of
electromagnetic radiation. Its waters are a myriad of radiation – radio waves,
the sun’s light, infrared and all the rest.
Initially, the world was dominated by the sun’s light and infrared
radiation, the harbingers of heat.
Now, however, with the construction of soaring phone towers and the ubiquity of smartphones,
radio waves seem to be growing in domination.
The notion of whether phone towers pose
a health risk has been speculated for decades.
The presence of towers and cell phones concerned people
even at times when mobile devices were a luxury – complex technological
equipment that only a few people carried.
The situation today seems to cause even more apprehension –
cell phones are as common and necessary as footwear, every household has a
router, and to accommodate both of these, radio towers are planted more often
than trees.
Ionizing vs Non-ionizing radiation
Any type of fear is largely spurred by
uncertainty, which is essentially a lack of information.
In this case, the fear of phone towers seems to be fueled by our lack of
understanding of electromagnetic physics.
The seven types of electromagnetic
radiation can be categorized into two classes based on their energies:
ionizing and non-ionizing radiation
Ionizing radiation represents the high-frequency spectra of electromagnetic
radiation, which includes high-frequency ultraviolet rays, X-rays and gamma
rays – remnants of a nuclear aftermath.
Prolonged exposure to these emissions can cause
cellular mutation, which can lead to various cancers. This is because, as the
name suggests, they tend to ionize and destabilize molecules.
These high-frequency waves are so energetic that they
interact with matter as if they are individual particles, colliding and kicking
matter’s constituents out of their stable structures.
Exposure to such an energetic radiation disrupts the
structure of DNA, a major cause of cancer and other autoimmune diseases.
On the other hand, non-ionizing radiation
represents the low-frequency spectra of electromagnetic radiation.
These include radio waves, microwaves, infrared and
visible light.
Owing to their low frequencies, these waves travel with
very low energies, rendering them non-ionizable — they are unable to knock
particles away from stable molecular structures.
The fact that low-frequency waves aren’t energized enough to
disrupt DNA molecules implies that the radio waves constantly emanating
from phone towers are
harmless.
Even so, could constant exposure to them, like an interference
pattern, positively add up to threaten us with a fatal health risk?
The fear is most likely to be observed in parents who are
apprehensive about radiation affecting the developing brains and bodies of
children.
Are these apprehensions justified? Let’s see what the experts have
to say.
They are “possibly carcinogenic”
Phone towers are
not the only thing we should be worried about; phones and routers
are similar to miniature towers themselves.
In fact, not only are they greater in number, but they also lie
much closer to us than most cell phone towers do.
Microwaves generating non-ionizing radiation are harmless,
but concentrated microwaves can penetrate our skin and burn tissues; this is
exactly how ovens work!
So… should we be worried? Well,
the answer isn’t an outright no.
One can find some solace in
the fact that the evidence for the case hasn’t been conclusive.
This is reflected in the World
Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC),
which deems radio transmission “possibly carcinogenic”
— towers don’t seem to pose a threat, but we aren’t sure.
However, there are multiple reasons
why they might be harmless.
First, antennas are generally mounted on top of tall
towers or buildings, which causes the power levels of the emitted radiation to
dwindle as it descends toward the ground.
At ground level, the emission is 1000 times lower than
the limits for safe transmission set by the Federal Communication Commission
(FCC).
In other words, damage is highly unlikely.
Second, the signals are not transmitted constantly, but
intermittently.
However, could the radiation affect
people who live in the vicinity of these towers, such as people living right
below the roof or inhabitants of buildings whose windows face towers mounted on
a shorter building directly adjacent to them?
The answer is still “No”. Cement, wood
and other obstructions attenuate signals, thereby deterring any copious amounts
of potentially harmful radiation.
The power levels are known to be at a
maximum right next to the antenna, so access to the places with direct
exposure might be limited.
Still, a lack of studies relating to
residents living near a glut of towers and their likelihood of cancer hasn’t
allowed any definitive conclusion to appear.
Akash Peshin is
an Electronic Engineer from the University of Mumbai, India and a science
writer at ScienceABC. Enamored with science ever since discovering a picture
book about Saturn at the age of 7, he believes that what fundamentally fuels
this passion is his curiosity and appetite for wonder.
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Phone towers on top of a hill.
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The electromagnetic spectrum.
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Mir, a Russian space station that operated in low
Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, as seen in orbit around Earth in a file picture.
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A microwave oven.
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Bell on the telephone in New York (calling
Chicago) in 1892. Good ol’ times, huh?
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